Cellular phones combined with digital cameras are consumer electronic devices that combine two well known technologies into a single device that allows a user to take digital pictures and relay the pictures to remote locations. A typical cellular phone combined with a digital camera is detailed in, for instance US Design Patent D478,103, titled “Digital Camera for Cellular Phone”, granted to Chin on Feb. 24th, 2004, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference.
Although a combined digital camera and cellular phone makes it easier for a user to take pictures, the limited screen size and memory of current cellular phones create the need for new ways to manage and view the images. One way for users of combined cellular phone and digital cameras to manage their images is to send images to a central location and then manage them using conventional digital image storage and printing technology as described in, for instance, U.S. Pat. No. 6,332,146 issued to Jebens, et al. on Dec. 18, 2001, titled “Method and apparatus for storing and printing digital images”, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference.
An alternative way to manage and view images taken using cell phones has been provided by companies, such as dotPhoto Inc., of West Trenton, N.J., in the form of central storage servers. Viewers may send their images from the cell phone to the central server, where it is stored in a user album. The user may then access their account at the dotPhoto web-site. This allows the authorized user to view the images stored in their albums and also to order prints of images. The prints of the images are then sent to the user by mail.
A draw back of such existing methods of handling printing or other viewing of digital images taken with a cell phone, is that the user must access a web-site or computer after the pictures have been sent from the camera. What is needed is a method which overcomes these drawbacks.